UCU men 6-0, UCU ladies 5-1

I just landed in Kansas City--free wireless internet access anywhere in the airport.  Yesterday at the airport in Amsterdam I paid 10 euro to check email for 30 minutes.  There's a pile of reasons why Kansas is better than most places on earth.

I'm here for the NCCAA (National CHRISTIAN College Athletic Association) convention.  Next week I'm hoping to be at the convention for the big boys that encompasses all NCAA and NAIA associations in Orlando, but the things presently sold-out and I'm gonna need someone with some missionary compassion to get me credentials.

While I'm here, lemme update UCU basketball progress.  The men won two tough games in two weeks.  we beat Falcons two Friday's ago, 50-45.  A tough tough game against a tough team.  Until two or three years ago, Falcons were the Yankees or Manchester United of Ugandan Basketball.  Dominating everything with only one or two challenges.  Things are now evening out, but they're still tough--they haven't forgotten how to win.  Until they played us, they had only one loss, by 2 points.  Their other wins were all come-from-behind in the third or fourth quarter.  So we kept pushing and holding tight and managed to hold it all together.  We didn't play great, but we played with purpose about 75% of the game--relying on the system a little more than on one-on-one attacking--and it was enough for a win.

The second win was against Power.  52-50.  We struggled offensively all night.  We led at the beginning, 2-0.  Then went down for a while, sometimes by as much as 12, until we tied it in the 3rd at 39.  Then we went down by as much as 10 before coming back and then going up by 2 on an old-school three-point-play with a minute left.  We spread things out the final minute and they didn't foul and we won.  It was a great win, but an ugly one.  We were like the ping-pong punk who stands across the table from you, hardly moving, just playing defense and letting you make mistakes.  Everyone watching thinks you're a much better player, but when it's all over, you lose.  Good teams MUST be able to win those games.  We're a good team.

The ladies won our only game in the last two weeks.  We beat Makerere Sparks--another university-based team.  Our ladies have reached the championship game in every university tournament we've ever played in.  We've finished 2nd every time--once losing to KIU, twice to Makerere.  There was good energy before the game and it always stayed with us.  We didn't do anything spectacular, but we scored more points than they did in every quarter and beat them 53-40.  Again, Robert and Geoff handled everything--I sat and kept stats.

I'm gonna try to do a stat-update sometime soon for those four or five die-hard UCU fans who check this thing out.  I keep ladies stats, and I do stats for men's games sitting around the house watching the replay after burning games to dvd.

that's that